The World Around Us

Awaking blithe each morning, with eyes upon the World, I wonder, are we mourning with ebon flags unfurled – or are they but a warning, some draped like snakes and curled, stray stars and stripes adorning, sent from the netherworld. I wander through the garden with nothing on my mind and say 'I beg your pardon' alarmed at what I find as winds begin to harden and fate begins to grind. Confused, I watch my neighbours, they're wide-eyed, unafraid to halt all useful labours and join the death brigade; the ritters rattle sabres, the frail and fragile fade, morticians tap on tabors, the potentates parade. The military blesses (in tunics somewhat browned) its crimson-stained successes, hell bent and heaven bound. Such scenes no more distress us: a bloody battleground, dissevered heads with tresses and arms and legs abound; the fourth estate suppresses the heaps of bodies found (collateral excesses discarded in a mound). Society regresses, now living by the sword, with torture and its stresses upon a waterboard; a captive kid confesses, his innocence ignored - fallacious facts and guesses, the guts of justice gored! With canting vindication a big brass bully brags (with pearls of perspiration and swollen tongue that gags) of third world subjugation for gelt and oily swags, of human rights' castration, and on and on it drags. The manifold migration of refugees in rags while searching for salvation soon finds compassion lags; uprooted populations are fleeing from their flags else dying of starvation as naked hunger nags. With trump cards politicking, two little hands (all thumbs) may send the Mad Dog siccing. Insane! All sense succumbs. Atomic timepiece ticking until the Reaper comes as Geiger counters clicking drown out the droning drums. Cast out for not conforming, I wander day by day to find the earth deforming as nature wastes away, with bees no longer swarming (expunged with garden spray) and ocean depths transforming (neath plastic overlay). With CO2 performing the climate's led astray, the atmosphere's been warming, the grasses ashen gray, eternal tempest storming while permafrosts decay, and ozone holes are forming in deadly disarray. The people profiteering descend a slip'ry slope destroying, never fearing of running out of rope; instead they sit back sneering “our wealth’s your only hope”. Yes, Armageddon's nearing, it's doubtful that we'll cope, for Evolution's jeering, she's scanned our horoscope: we'll soon be disappearing with whale and antelope. Epitaph The multitudes were jumbled, some milling ’round the mall, while politicians bumbled when bracing for the brawl. The World around us rumbled, our backs against the wall, as bombs were tossed and tumbled across our broken ball. My kneecaps creaked and crumbled but I, too proud to crawl, took but a step and stumbled yet found no place to fall. And no one heard me grumble although I tried to call, or maybe I just mumbled, as strength began to pall. Well now the World’s been humbled I seek an urban sprawl, but since the feuds were fumbled there’s nothing left at all.